It's Easy To Run Hard But Hard Runs Aren't Easy

The Difference Between Makes All the Difference

It Ain’t Hard To Run Hard

I decided to run hard yesterday. I’m not training for a race. I don’t need to do a time trial or take a fitness test. I just decided to throw down. Really, it was nothing more than that. I got about 5 minutes into my run and realized that the weather was pretty nice. That was all the inspiration I needed. That was all it took to change the plan. And let me also say here that “pretty nice” meant cloudy and cold. In Portland “pretty nice” simply means it’s not raining. And no rain was enough to inspire a little chaos. Because the plan… at least the plan at the starting line… was to go and run nice and easy. Pleasant is the word that comes to mind actually. Yes, the plan was to go for a pleasant 25-30 minute run on the trails near my place.

Then I thought screw pleasant. Let’s rock! Let’s roll! Let’s tear up some dirt and hit the trails HARD! That’s what I thought as I decided to go with Plan B and not the aforementioned Plan A (aka A Pleasant Jaunt). And oh baby did I run hard! I flew on the downhills. I danced on the uphills. I slalomed the switchbacks. I grinded the long gentle rise that led out of the forest and back to the road that took me home. I finished spent and invigorated. I walked… more like stumbled… as I tried to pull in some oxygen. I was tired. The fatigue was real. I was drunk on it. The run was a blast. And I feel like I ran pretty fast. It’s hard to tell just how fast when you are running on trails with lots of tree cover and switchbacks and uphills and downhills and some funky terrain littered with gnarly roots and gravel that is at best… untrustworthy. So I measured how fast by how hard I ran and I decided the evidence pointed towards really fast. The pace displayed on my phone tried to tell me a different story. It is well known that on the trails the GPS giveth and the GPS taketh away. So I ignored those metrics.

What’s the point of this story? Are you already asking me that question? I’m only two paragraphs in! Patience… look into it… and order some. Geez. The point is that I wanted to run hard and I did. Easy enough. You want to run hard? Go for it. Just push it a little bit… or push it a lot. You looking to run hard? Increase the effort and you’ll find hard soon enough. It’s not hard to run hard. It’s easy. That’s the point. Well, that’s half the point. The other half is… not as easy… even if it’s supposed to be. You see… running hard does not always mean it was a hard run.

Sometimes When Life Gets Hard Even Easy Isn’t Easy

Let me tell you about a different run I went on last week. This time I decided early on that this run was going to stay an easy run. I wasn’t going to hammer any uphills or destroy any downhills or pummel any stretches of pancake flat roads. But nothing about this easy run was easy. I was stressed from work. I was overtired from a crap sleep. I didn’t plan out when I was going to have lunch and that led to no lunch. I know I had some coffee. I know had some more coffee. I can’t remember ever drinking any water now that I think of it. So, here I am, alone and standing by the crack in the road that serves as my starting line, tired, pissed, anxious, unmotivated, a little jittery and whole lot thirsty… not the best recipe for a great run.

Every stride was a struggle. The pace was slow. Every minute lasted an eternity. Time took its time. Every mile felt like its own marathon. Even though the run was not long. I ran easy and yet the run was anything but easy. I never ran hard and yet the run was always hard. There was a time in my life when this kind of a run would have been considered a failure. I struggled the whole run and I would have looked at the struggling as proof that I didn’t have what it takes… proof I was not… enough. Why else would I have so many problems on the run? What other explanation could there be for having an easy run be so damn hard?

It takes a special kind of mindset to pretend you don’t know the answers to the questions you’re asking. I still have running logs from years ago with entries of runs like this. Bad day at school led to a bad run after school. I only saw a weak runner. Awful day at work as followed by an awful run later that day. I only saw someone that didn’t have what was needed. I never saw the kid that crossed the starting line with all that baggage from traveling through a tough day. I never saw the young runner weighed down by stress or fear striding through a really difficult run and choosing… yes choosing to take all those strides anyway. That version of me thought “I can’t even do an easy run without it being hard.”

You Can’t Make A Hard Run Easy… But You Don’t Need To Make It Harder

I don’t think like that anymore. Mostly because that way of thinking is bullshit. You can’t leave behind who you are and what you’ve gone through, been through, worked through, fought through, thought through, got through to get to the starting line of your run! It comes with you. And it should. That doesn’t mean it needs to dominate your mindset or even the run. But acknowledging how you’re feeling on the starting line is essential to having the best run you can have. Owning who you are what you’re going through is how you adjust your training. It’s called coaching!

Again, this doesn’t mean the run needs to be spent stressing about what’s stressing you out. But let’s say you are stressed. Okay. Good to know. Instead of ignoring it let’s work on some of that stress on this run. How? By taking it extra easy early on the run. By hitting the trails instead of the roads because you know that the trails love you almost as much as you love them. And let’s make sure we reach out and touch some trees. Literally. Bark is badass. And I now know that admitting I’m stressed or pissed or anxious will help me be a better teammate and coach to myself. (It’s important to be empathetic with others… just don’t forget that it’s important to be empathetic with yourself too. Want to hear something obvious? Surrounding yourself with great teammates and coaches significantly boosts your chances to achieve basically anything great!)

Sometimes the run is going to be hard. Period. I’m not sure if Bruce Hornsby was a runner but that’s just the way it is. I don’t have any secret on how to make a hard run easy. I’m not looking for the secret either. Because I believe we are supposed to have hard runs that were meant to be easy. We’re supposed to have runs that are boring. We’re supposed to start runs low on motivation and start other runs feeling uninspired. We’re supposed to find ourselves out here on a run sometimes losing focus and lacking purpose. Today we may be struggling to do something that came easily yesterday and leaves us wondering what awaits on the other side of the starting line tomorrow. Running is not supposed to be some perfect activity you do. Running is supposed to be something you do that reminds you that you don’t need to be perfect to start… keep going… and finish.

I haven’t run yet today. I’m planning on an easy run. But I’ve run enough to know that I may scrap the plan and choose to run hard. I also know that no matter what I plan or how easy I run… the run might be a hard run to run. The only thing that’s guaranteed on the other side of a starting line is that nothing is guaranteed. That’s a hard thing to know but an easy thing to remember… or is it an easy thing to know but a hard thing to remember? Maybe it’s both. Whatever. I’ve got a run to run. Hoping for a pleasant one… nah.

Screw pleasant.